Demo video-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_6ZC8n9nKs

Image and Video Courtesy of The Nokia Blog

As you can see in the video above, Hermes is all about synchronizing your phone contacts with those from your social networking profiles. With support for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Gravatar, the app covers some of the most popular networking services. While the app has been one of my favorites, just for its auto-addition of birthdays and anniversaries of my friends into my N900 calendar (thanks to Facebook sync), the app did have a few downfalls in its previous iteration. The most nagging one was the matching of contacts which the app failed to sync. However the latest version does a much better job at matching and with find-as-you-type, searching a contact is way faster and intuitive than it ever was.

So do update Hermes on your N900 and if you still haven’t installed this app, make sure you get this one from the application manager.

The app is called Mobile HotSpot, and its still in it’s stages of infancy and is presently available as a free download in Extras Devel repository. What features does it offer and how does it compare to JoikuSpot? Find out after the break.

Well, Mobile HotSpot is pretty simple to use with a very simple and effective UI. You can set the network name and WEP key to restrict the access to your ad-hoc network (highly advisable). There is a huge Stop button to pull the network off the plug anytime you want. JoikuSpot in comparison has a more streamlined UI with more features like a customizable WLAP IP address among other things, but all those features come at a price of EUR 9 (USD 11.55) for a single license. If that price is too steep for you, Mobile HotSpot offers almost the same features for free. I am sticking with Mobile HotSpot for now and I hope it gets better when it graduates from Extras repository.

Before you start using this app, you need to know how to customize this app to set your favorite apps in the launch menu. For that you need to head to the Settings mode of the N900, which is kinda counter-intuitive as one would expect to find the settings option within the Quick Launch app, but then it’s not rocket science and one will eventually figure it out! Once in Settings menu, look for Quick Launch, which should be listed in General sub-category. Now you are all set to set configure five of your most frequently used apps in the quick launch menu: just tap it and select the app from the drop down menu. Can’t get any simpler than that!

Now before I sign off, let me tell you that you can download the app for free from the app manager (you will need to have activated the additional catalogue)

Nokia PR didn’t help much over the next fortnight, refusing to divulge any details on the possibility of N900 getting MeeGo and I was losing hope over seeing some Moblin apps on N900 but then, the official MeeGo blog was put-up and Valtteri Halla of Nokia, made it clear that the MeeGo repository is infact headed to N900 and that too as soon as towards the end of this month! What does it mean to your N900s? Find out after the break.

If you are a Linux hacker/ developer this news would open new avenues for you for you now have a wider range of applications to play around with but for a non-geeky end user like me, this news is of little to no significance for:

1. There’s is still no word on whether N900 will be eligible for the upgrade to MeeGo 1 as and when its released
2. There are presently no usable MeeGo apps that end users can try and appreciate the power and usability of MeeGo on a mobile device

I may sound a little sceptical but that’s just because MeeGo is still in it’s conceptual stage with both Nokia and Intel getting the foundation ready for the MeeGo platform to take off. They have set the pathway and going by the deadline of March-end for the release of MeeGo 1 repositories for Intel Atom Boards and N900, I am more than assured that they are indeed working hard and at frentic pace to assure that N900 users are not left out of one of the most interesting developments in the mobile computing industry. I just hope developers and hackers come up with some great apps for MeeGo over the due course of time.

Rubic Cube as you may know is a 3D mechanical puzzle and is so popular that there are world championships held every year and world rankings are maintained by World Cube Association. There are all sorts of variations of Rubic cube with people playing blindfolded, feet etc and the cubes come in different grid sizes as well ranging from 2×2 to 7×7. Enough of introduction now, let’s now dive into Cube Touch on N900:

Screenshots-

Offscreen Technologies are sticking with the most popular 3×3 grid size for this version of Cube Touch and frankly speaking this is best suited for the screen size of n900. Since our N900 is no cube or not even square, anything more than 3×3 will be a difficult implementation. Not surprisingly, Offscreen have restricted this version at 3×3 and they have done a great job indeed. Sliding across the faces is intuitive and easy and so is sliding individual plates. The bottom line is this one addicting game and you are gonna spend hours on this one.

The world record for 3×3 Rubic cube is around 7 s. How close can you get to it? Better, if anyone can beat it!

While the official changelog is not out yet, it is highly recommended that you update the firmware as firmware updates generally contain bug fixes and optimizations necessary for functioning of device software. Find out how to update, after the break.

Screenshots-

How to update?

Well you have two options:

1. OTA (Over The Air): I would recommend this feature as this is no frills (read no cables) method to upgrade your firmware. This feature can be triggered by just launching the Application manager and clicking on update. You should see a download prompt for a 16.2 MB file.
2. NSU(Nokia Software Updater): If you prefer doing things the old way, you can plug in your device to a PC, select the PC Suite option, and click on update firmware. Though the N900 supports UDP (User Data Preservation), there is no harm in making a backup of the device before updating.

While the update has been out for over a day now, users across the world are still complaining of not being able to access the update. Are you one of the fortunate ones or still waiting for the update? Please let us know.

Needless to say, the advantages of portrait mode for one-handed operation are innumerable. Now only if all the applications were to function in portrait mode, would the N900 community breathe a sigh of relief but having got the best feature of N900 working in the portrait mode is a big consolation for ardent N900 fans. So guys before I spill the beans on short-cut key(s) that enable portrait mode on microB on N900, take a look at this demo video below, after the break though.

Demo video-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v37TGfA0jQQ

So now you know the magic keys are: Ctrl + Shift + O

Here’s another demo video from the folks at The Nokia Blog:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t77yb6xj_TQ

Unfortunately, there is no onscreen landscape keyboard yet and hopefully Nokia will fix this with a firmware update soon.

]]> http://www.nokian900.tv/portrait-mode-unearthed-for-n900-browser/feed/ 5 http://www.nokian900.tv/n900-vs-nexus-one-the-first-2010-fightout/ http://www.nokian900.tv/n900-vs-nexus-one-the-first-2010-fightout/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:35:00 +0000 bltzkri3g http://www.nokian900.tv/?p=503 2010 is here and as expected there are new entries in the smartphone bandwagon but surprisingly this one is from none other than Google! Alright, we knew it was coming, when the first rumour on the Google branded phone appeared on Twitter in the week preceding Christmas but with Google now going official on its foray into mobile retailing, it makes sense to pit the so called Google’s Superphone to our very own gladiator aka Nokia N900!

For a head-on comparison, check this link which should give you a component wise comparison between the two devices. Ofcourse I know, that wouldn’t whet your apetite and thats why I pulled this hands-on shot from the web, showing the mighty 2 devices next to each other. More on that, after the break.

Screenshots-

Image Courtesy of The Nokia Blog

As can be seen from the above hands-on comparison, Nexus one seems to have a clear edge in the aesthetics department. Not only is it thinner because of the absence of a physical keyboard, the trackball, the teflon coating (for few versions), it has some other killer features as well: the first being the AMOLED capactive screen (capable of multitouch); then the trackball and last but not the least unlocked device availability across countries in Europe, Americas and Asia.

While the Nexus has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor under its hood, compared to the 6oo MHz ARM Cortex  A8 processor on the Nokia N900, makes it obvious the hardware superiority of the Nexus, the lack of a physical kepyboard can deter some of the business users used to the Nokia communicator E90. The AMOLED screen is apparently brilliant and with the multi-touch capability doing the rounds especially for the US based devices, N900 has a reason to be worried. But the full linux functionality on the N900, along with the full browser features calls for his continuous reporting at the news service.

So while the biggies fight-it-out to bring in the best of the best hardware at the most attractive prices is to try the online outlets and most possibly you should be able to save a couple of hundreds.

Well, I have been maintaining that a true linux platform like the maemo is every hacker’s dream and with Nokia being spot-on with their choice of hardware for its N900 (except may be for its resistive screen), hackers and developers are unleashing the hidden power of N900. I can go on and on,  glorifying the Maemo 5 platform and the N900, but lets check the PS3 controller capabilities of our N900 first.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=huzCCdMH5SY

In case you are wondering, the audio is in Italian but the video demo is rather self-explanatory.  Now, let me throw some light on BlueMaemo. Its a free app, as all the other apps so far released for the N900, and is a pretty powerful one at that. The app can convert an N900 into any of the bluetooth peripherals like a mouse, remote, gamepad, keyboard and as in this case: a PS3 controller. BlueMaemo can be downloaded from the application manager under the Systems sub-category, that is if you have enabled the extras-devel repository.

The app being in testing mode or the alpha mode, is not bug free and users have reported frequent crashes and freezing of N900s (in other words: N900 hangs). So, if you dare to be among the first to try an app as revolutionary as the BlueMaemo, head to the app manager straightaway. If otherwise, wait for the developers to iron out all the bugs before the final version is released sometime in the next month or two.

All set in native 800×480 px resolution, the wallpapers have been designed just for N900 and is by all standards the best collection of N900 wallpers I have seen so far on the web. The wallpaper on the left is just an indication of what the website has in store for you and before you head straight to check that amazing compilation, let me run you through a few of my personal favorites from the collection, after the break though.

Aren’t they just amazing? What I have pulled here is just the tip of an ice-berg and for around 50+ christmas themed wallpers please head to http://www.n900wallpapers.com/tags/christmas and yeah do check the website for other wallpapers too. They have just an amazing collection.

By the way, before I get carried away by the holiday spirit, Wish you all a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS. May Santa slip in a few N900s in your stocking.

I will be off on a weeklong holiday and won’t be updating the blog as much as I would have loved to. But stay tuned guys, I am coming up with something big for my first post of 2010.